I am a bit stuck on this giving thanks stuff right now. I focused on it last Sunday morning and have to confess I am not sure that I did the subject justice; hence my second try via this medium.

One of the verses that I mentioned last Sunday deserved far more thought and so here goes:

Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. John 6:23

The bread spoken of here is referring to the feeding of the 5,000. Now, there was only a kid’s lunch – five barley loaves and a couple of little fish – but after Jesus gave thanks, five thousand were fed and they picked up five baskets of scraps after the meal! The author points out that people saw Jesus’ giving thanks as the catalyst for a miracle.

I talk a lot about climate change and am convinced that a simple act of thanksgiving can change the environment in which we live. People today just assume that what they get they have a right to! With such a mindset thanksgiving is hardly a high priority. While my Year Two Scripture class might think that Pastor John fulfils the task on automatic pilot, the two or three, who each week, without fail, come up to me and say ‘Thank you Pastor John’, have no idea what an encouragement that is. Incidentally, by Year 5 and 6 we have knocked that grateful chromosome out of them and I rarely hear a similar word from those older kids.

Why do I believe so strongly in the local church? Mainly because I am so deeply grateful for what a local congregation in Victoria did for me a good many years ago now. I remain so thankful for the friends who continue to support me from previous congregations and am humbled by the continued love, care and support of this local faith community at NorthWest Uniting. If you haven’t felt thanked lately, my apologies!

Why is the Christian faith more important to me than a set of moral laws to live by and a tag that says I am apparently not an atheist? It’s simple really. You know that stuff in the Bible about God giving his Son to come and live among us and show us an alternative to the bland ‘religious’ existence that we have become used to? I believe that. The words of Jesus: ‘life in abundance, streams of living water, take up your bed and walk, Lazarus, come out! Father, forgive them.’ All those and many more, I believe! I believe and am grateful.

The whole Jesus story, birth, life, ministry, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension; I believe and am thankful, because without this amazing truth, I am unsure where I would be today.

In the same chapter as the above reading about giving thanks we find that Jesus’ popularity has dropped away and people were leaving him. Jesus turned to his mates – the twelve – and said, ‘Do you also want to go away?’ Simon Peter gets a bit of bad press, but surely his reply is one of the great moments in Scripture:
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. John 6:68

I give up! Where else am I going to go? As a pastor who for the past twenty years has been involved in a challenging ministry of clearing, ploughing, sowing and nourishing new ground, there has been any number of disappointments and hurts. But man, where else am I going to go? Amidst all of the hard ground, pilfering birds, stones, rocks and weeds, I have seen God powerfully at work. I have been given so much and experienced so much blessing that the best I can do is continue to be thankful to God through Christ and hopefully encourage a similar spirit among others.

If something else works for you, that’s cool I guess; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.